


Un-un-undead

by unluckitty



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Ambiguous Relationships, And i mean WEIRD, Attempt at Humor, Body Horror, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gen, Graphic Description, Horror, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Knives, M/M, Mention of guns, Mention of insects (maggots and ants), Mentioned (past) bullying), Mentioned Parent Death, Murder, Negative character development, Other, Pet Sematary AU, Weird Plot Shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:42:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28479384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unluckitty/pseuds/unluckitty
Summary: Dead friend? No problem; resurrect them at the Sematary as many times as your heart desires!**Be careful of the smell. Be careful of the murderous look in their eye, if they have any. Be careful of going insane yourself.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Un-un-undead

**Author's Note:**

> For those who dont know what pet sematary is: it's from the novel by Stephen King (by the name "Pet Sematary" go read it cos it's really good).  
> The sematary was a place where people would bury dead bodies to be resurrected, but they would come back basically deranged, smelling like rotting flesh and murderous. They come back knowing information that basically they should not physically know. Fyi in the OG story, people were only buried once in the sematary (not repeatedly). 
> 
> Read the tags...you've been warned.

The first time Renjun came back, he gave a tilted smile to Donghyuck. Soon after, he was wrapped in a hug and Donghyuck pulled away with a brushing of dirt across his shoulder. 

“It worked what the fuck,” Donghyuck murmured under his breath, an equally wide smile playing at his lips. His eyes grazed over the marks around Renjun’s neck, now only roughly covered by his red, woolen scarf draped around his shoulders. Streaks of what vaguely resembled stretch marks hung like christmas lights towards the top of his neck- the base of where his head started- followed by a darker ring of bruises near the bottom. They extended to the backside of his neck, with the ring expanding there into a flower’s bloom. On top of all of this, there was a waft of a forest, mossy smell. Neither unpleasant, nor particularly pleasant. 

Renjun also hadn’t been found blindfolded when he died; Donghyuck didn’t think that the dullness of his eyes were from bruising, necessarily. 

“So it did. I figured I’d be safe at your place for now.” Same voice, same warm, honey, Renjun voice. Same tilted smile. 

“Yeah...yeah, you’re safe here. No one can...can hurt you now.”

“Other than you,” Renjun answered, taking his scarf off and hanging it up behind the door. Now the halo of blotchiness was displayed in all its glory, top of the neck down to near his shoulders. His smile was wiped, replaced with his usual neutral expression- that Donghyuck so missed seeing. 

He laughed, taking Renjun’s dry hand in his own and pressing a kiss onto the back of it. 

Sunlight peeped through between Donghyuck’s curtains bright and early the next morning. He stretched. 

“Breakfast is done,” Renjun’s voice came from his right side, firm and satisfied. He wore the clothes Donghyuck had left on his bed in the spare room- they still fit like they used to. A faint scent of shampoo came from his hair as he leaned down to rip the sheets off with a laugh, although the forestry scent from yesterday was still overpowering. Though despite being only half awake, Donghyuck noticed the way his gaze unfocused for a second, to look directly at the sunlight, unblinking. Only for a split second, then the old giggle was back and he was being pulled out of bed. 

“Cereal and coffee, come on,” Renjun’s nails dug into the flesh of Donghyuck’s arm, imprinting crescent moons. There was no sign of the dirt from yesterday, in fact his nails had been trimmed. Despite this, even a half-awake Donghyuck could smell the dirt, the soaked ground. He resisted from Renjun’s tug for a second, and tentatively ran his fingers through a tuft of hair, to which Renjun gave the same grin from yesterday, copied and pasted. Practiced. The hair felt as smoothly as he’d expected, not even with a fleck of sand or soil to his touch. Satisfied, he let himself be pulled along again, to Renjun’s delight- perhaps the dirt had made itself a part of him instead. 

Which was why not a spot of fear passed over Donghyuck when Renjun was resting his head on his tummy later that afternoon, whilst he wore his one and only white shirt. 

“Renjun,” he tested the name quietly, though loud enough for him to hear. There wasn’t a twitch. “Renjun…” he murmured again, rolling the name over his tongue again and playing with Renjun’s hair again. And this time, the person in question opened an eye, staring straight back at him. Funny; Renjun had never been able to wink properly. 

“Yes?”

“Do you remember anything?” His eyes glazed for a few seconds this time, longer than the first time, in which his lips curved into a pretty smile once again. A tinge of blood red spread to the white of his eye, and stayed there. Then, he re-positioned so he was sitting next to Donghyuck with an arm slung around his neck. 

“I remember when you lied to me, three years ago, that you had to be home only by midnight. You didn’t have a curfew back then,” Renjun said with no traceable emotion. If he were honest, even Donghyuck couldn’t remember such an arbitrary event. All the same, he let out a tense giggle. 

“When the hell was that?”

“One of your first parties. You were scared. Although-” Renjun cast a glance to his scarf, still hanging at the door, “-maybe that was a good thing. Your girlfriend at the time cheated on you at that party.” Donghyuck shot up at that, hearing a faint crack from Renjun’s elbow as he jerked it away from his neck. His hand was beginning to tickle the hairs there, though his fingers were starting to feel more like claws by the second.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know,” Renjun said, his hand still by his neck. It started to stray to his cheek, absent-mindedly. “She didn’t tell anyone.” His finger lightly traced in a figure of eight around his lower jaw. 

“Then how do you know?” A shrug. Donghyuck sighed, attempting to settle himself back to his original position. 

“I only found out a year after that. I...don’t think I even told you why we broke u-” 

Renjun’s right thumb pressed against the front of his throat then, abruptly cutting off his sentence; it took Donghyuck a moment to process that he hadn’t finished talking out of both shock and the sudden block of airflow. Renjun’s left arm and elbow dug into his chest, pushing him into an awkward position against the arm of the sofa. Renjun grinned again, this time so wide that Donghyuck nearly thought it reached his ears- although maybe it did. A mouth shouldn’t have that many teeth. Eyes shouldn’t be pure white. 

Once his eyes widened in sudden realisation, on instinct Donghyuck took a punch at his left shoulder, then a weaker one at the right. This was apparently enough to slightly break the contact of Renjun’s elbow and his chest, as he then grabbed Renjun’s wrist. It twisted with a hideous crack that even made even Donghyuck bite an apology back. But an apology was unneeded; the wrist popped almost instantly back into place and made the attached hand lunge back at his throat. The attached body- creature- also stuck as close as possible to Donghyuck, who by now had swung his legs over the back of the sofa. Renjun grinned again, growling at the same time. Moss started to work its way up his collarbone, where maggots had already somehow bore a hole straight through and were feasting on his back. 

“I can’t say I’m too surprised,” Donghyuck huffed. His eyebrows furrowed, knuckles going pale from gripping a kitchen knife. 

“Then come closer,” Renjun’s eyes lit up. Or what was left of them anyway. His voice, whilst came out with a touch of gravel, sounded oddly like regular Renjun. “Come closer, Donghyuck.” 

A breath of silence, then Donghyuck muttered,

“Are you sure you don’t remember anything else?”

“You were bullied as a kid, in pre-school,” Renjun immediately replied in that same honey-sweet voice. “Spit on, kicked at, the works. Do you remember that, you baby?” 

“Yeah, they called me that,” Donghyuck gritted his teeth at the memories trickling back to him. By now they were so repressed, they basically didn’t exist anymore. But now that Renjun mentioned it, perhaps it actually happened. 

It was after this consideration, when Donghyuck recalled that he’d met Renjun well into highschool. 

“Sure did.” 

Renjun took a step forward. His hands were presumably folded behind his back, but Donghyuck barely noticed as he stuck the end of the knife into the slowly growing maggot-hole. He twisted, like it was a key, and pulled it out with a lump of dirt falling onto the kitchen floor. Another stab, this time into the side of his neck, and an orderly line of ants crawled onto the blade. Another, and another, and another still, until Renjun’s eyes reverted back to brown; more dead than he was beforehand. 

Donghyuck shrugged, taking one last stab at the lower abdomen before dropping the knife in the sink. It was only now when he realised the crusted blood on his shirt sleeve, and quite liquid blood on his hands. His vision shifted back into focus, confirming that it was indeed some form of blood, and he flicked the tap onto full power until droplets splashed onto the floor. 

He scrubbed his hands, twice over with three pumps of soap each time, out of a kind of silent hysteria he’d never felt. The kind of hysteria that would make him forget that there was a body on his kitchen floor, that he would have to at least move. So washing his hands had been useless. 

Nonetheless, he sighed again, poking his chest just to make sure he was dead beyond a shadow of a doubt. Still. And yes, quite dead. 

Donghyuck’s breath quickened at this, progressing into short wails of a banshee. In the meantime, Renjun’s eyes were a few chews away from gone. 

And it was in the dead of night, when Donghyuck found himself taking a shovel and the scarf into the sematary once again. Perhaps it would be better this time, he murmured under his breath. 

Perhaps it would be better this time, he repeated, until he wanted to scream. 

  
  
  


It seemed to be a slightly longer time, before those familiar knocks came at his door again. Sure enough, it was Renjun with his red, woolen scarf standing and smiling. Perhaps a blindfold would’ve been useful this time; looking at a round-two corpse with eyes thoroughly chewed out was rather startling. 

“You did a sloppy job on that burial, huh.” His mouth seemed to be working perfectly fine, however. He hung up the scarf behind the door, Donghyuck closing it behind him. 

“And yet it took you ages to get out? Dumbass.” Click. 

“Nah. I made a couple visits first. You got the special treatment last time so it’s only fair, isn’t it?” The corners of his eye sockets creased, in the weirdest smile Donghyuck had ever seen. 

“That is fair. You’re right.”

Perhaps Donghyuck’s high hopes hadn’t been for nothing: other than the new scars and visual increase in holes, nothing much seemed to change. Which was good- it meant he could keep Renjun around for longer. 

So, starting the poison in small doses would be the best course of action. First in his morning coffee (with some sugar and milk too, to be fair), then in the cup of water left on his bedside, which Donghyuck let out a giggle when he discovered it empty the following morning. 

“Anything else you remember, then? Whilst you’re still here. Are you planning any more visits?” Renjun snickered at that, letting the razer teeth show. His head physically wobbled a little, as if trying to gauge where exactly Donghyuck was to avoid replying to a wall (this had happened before). 

“Depends on how long you keep me here for. And as for the stories…” The rusty cogs in his mind creaked and turned, processing what information he’d come back with this time. “You liked your best friend, in middle school. Being the coward you are, you never confessed. And by that point it was too late.” Unfortunately, not wrong. Donghyuck had the grace to laugh at this one- at least it was delivered in a less shocking manner. By less shocking, it meant that he’d gotten used to the gravel in his voice, with its awkward rhythms and glassy inflections. 

“Can’t deny it, can’t deny it,” he rubbed eyes until he saw stars. 

“Of course you can’t,” Renjun laughed at him. 

Almost predictably, being suddenly woken up to a pillow smothered onto his face at 2am was no surprise. And it might've actually worked this time, had it not been for Donghyuck actually being awake anyway. What looked like Renjun's void of a mouth made a pouting shape and stalked out the room upon this realisation, hugging the pillow to his chest, to which Donghyuck simply flipped over. 

Then a couple mornings later, Donghyuck opened his room door to Renjun holding up the same kitchen knife he'd used to kill him the first time. Both of them stood, blinking (though Renjun blinking was an extremely odd sight now), before he sighed, dropping the knife without another word. 

"Pussy," Donghyuck grumbled, picking up the knife and fake-lunging at Renjun's chest. He didn't flinch, instead flicking a piece of dried leaf from his knee. 

Renjun stayed this time for roughly a month, accidentally. Had it not been for Donghyuck spilling the rest of the poison in one cup of water whilst half-asleep on a winter sunrise, he might've stayed for another month. Which was why even he was surprised when Renjun collapsed that evening, after some swaying and uttering something along the lines of “I’ll be right back”. Of course, he wasn’t wrong- Donghyuck made sure of that. 

  
  
  
  
  


The last time Renjun came back, he gave a tilted smile to Donghyuck. His red, woolen scarf, tucked under his arm, very much torn and more brown than red, as was its owner. By now, the skin and tissue from his fingers had been gnawed away, leaving exposed bone to rub Donghyuck’s shoulder, with one corner of his lips turned up at an unnatural angle. 

“It’ll happen this time.”

“Oh, I’m sure that,” Donghyuck replied, placing his own hand on top of Renjun’s. It felt oddly smooth yet moist- the sort of feeling you’d get if you touched still intact and in-use teeth. 

“Good.” Renjun’s voice had decayed to a sound that was definitely no longer human, and more like an animatronic trying to imitate a human; and perhaps that was exactly what was happening. 

Donghyuck closed the door behind him, and allowed the scarf to be hung at its usual place behind the door. 

“How about one more story before I die for the last time?”

“How do you know it’s the last?” Donghyuck raised an eyebrow, taking a sip of his water. He’d long since gotten rid of the poison from last time, and didn’t plan to use it again anyway. Liquids were perfectly safe in the house once more. 

Renjun waved his hand dismissively, and ignored the question. 

“Well, your father actually buried your mother in the same graveyard as you did to me, twenty or so years ago. She killed one of her close friends, before being killed by your father with a bullet to the head. Your father’s still living in guilt.”

Donghyuck cocked his head, taking a moment to process the information this time. But before he could say anything, Renjun continued,

“Donghyuck, you’re not so different from me,” his eye sockets closed and opened themselves slowly. “Look at your dark eye bags. Look at the scars on your arms. Look at the bruise on your throat.” Donghyuck had to consciously stop himself from reaching to his throat just then to touch the bruising. But sure enough, the purple-black-green marble stared right back at him every morning in the bathroom mirror. 

“See you,” Renjun said, before standing up and heading to his room.

  
  


Donghyuck had met Renjun well into highschool. Both quite alright students, with their own small, but tight enough friend group. In fact, most of them had stuck together throughout college as well, including the both of them. They even shared a house for half a year, before Renjun had to move away for work reasons. 

It had always been for work reasons- whenever he’d wanted to spend time with him it was always “wish I could, man,” with a rash smile. Eventually the group drifted away from each other, one or the other (Donghyuck had forgotten) probably becoming really successful at what they do and the odd one who simply had bad luck. Arguably, Renjun was the first and Donghyuck had been the latter. 

Renjun’s death had been apparently a murder by strangulation, and it was reported a couple days later in the news. Something or the other about rivalry, some things that Donghyuck would have no clue about, or give a care about. His family mourned for a bit, then continued with their lives. Other close friends at the time followed suit, maybe other than the one or two who might still be grieving to this day. As far as Donghyuck could remember, the whole original group had been invited to the funeral, and only he showed up. The others had allegedly either “moved out of the country” or were “busy that day, sorry :(”. Of course, there was the other unsaid reason of “I simply don’t care anymore.”

And that’s human nature for you. 

  
  
  


Which was why the feeling of killing was addicting to Donghyuck. It was addicting to an amount so insane, that it felt completely sane to him; in other words, second nature. 

  
  
  
  
  


The water in the bathroom sink quickly grew muddy brown with dirt flakes and god knows what else floating around, finally being let loose from its decomposing owner. Bubbles rose to the surface in an unnaturally inconsistent rhythm, meanwhile the moss around Renjun’s shoulders and feet seemed to visibly claim the rest of him, as it drank up the splashed water. What was left of the skin at the bottom of his neck on the other hand, shrivelled into a tissue paper-like texture. His body eventually crumpled, succumbing itself to the Earth for the last time. 

Donghyuck wiped the dirt from his hands. 

  
  
  
  


But of course, he waited for nights on end; waiting for Renjun to return with that familiar knock. Waiting for him to return with the same tilted smile as the first time, the second, the...no. Not the last, it couldn’t be the last, not just yet. No, Renjun was going to come back, and he was going to return with that damn red, woolen scarf, in all of its tattered glory. Renjun was going to come back to him, like he always had, and the cycle was going to continue again, Donghyuck was sure of this. His mind lit up with new ideas; new methods of murder; new ways of driving himself off the edge.

Renjun was going to come back to him, and if he didn’t, then Donghyuck would have to take himself to him instead. 

So went that thought, as Donghyuck tied a blue scarf around his neck and tied the other end to his ceiling fan and kicked away the stepping stool from his feet. He held onto the part of the scarf directly hanging on the ceiling, and leant his head into his arm. He gave a tilted smile, before closing his eyes. 

**Author's Note:**

> I am insane thanks for asking. And yes im aware that this is literally a ridiculous story that absolutely shouldn't be taken seriously but yk what? I enjoyed writing it all the same. 
> 
> HNGGGGGG ive been wanting to write a pet sematary au for a whileeee now and this is also semi-inspired by the "scarf" theme in a little wonder's december drabble challenge!! Basically i went "damn i could strangle someone with a scarf" and then i combined that with this idea and boom. This monster.
> 
> Thank you for reading!! Comments n kudos are much appreciated and encouraged as usual


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